McGruber writes: The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://www.chronicle.com) has a web episode about Richard Linder, a US college student who was determined to do the impossible: earn a US college degree while not taking on any student debt.

Mr. Linder cobbled together an associate degree in liberal arts for a mere $3,000. He did it by transferring academic credits to Excelsior College (http://www.excelsior.edu/), a regionally accredited institution that doesn't require students to take any of its own courses.

Mr. Linder's earned his transferred credit hours from an array of unexpected sources: from high school Advanced Placement courses (http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/about.html) to classes taught by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (http://www.fema.gov/) and the National Fire Academy (http://www.usfa.fema.gov/nfa/). He even managed to get 1 credit hour from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com).Link to Original Source